Are you 30 days sober?

Or are you looking ahead to that first big milestone?

Or supporting a loved one at the beginning of their sobriety journey?

At the beginning of sobriety, those milestones mean everything. To be a month sober is an enormous accomplishment, and for most people, they are still feeling brand new to sobriety. Your first month is something to celebrate! And if you feel like you’re hanging on for that milestone — keep going. It’s so worth it.

Your first month is only the first step to a better life. Someday you’ll be a full year sober!

I hope these inspirational quotes help you along on your recovery journey and support you through! Your best days are ahead. 

My first 30 days sober

My first thirty days I spent constantly refreshing the I Am Sober app. Luckily, my alcohol addiction had not yet fully interfered with my daily life. I never hit a “rock bottom” in the way that people talk about. But by the time I got sober alcohol was fully in control of my evenings. So I would get home from my teaching job and try to keep myself as busy as possible. And whether it was a bad day or a good day in my attempt at a new way of life, I was on the app scrolling for motivational quotes and the stories of other people in the same stage of the recovery process as me. 

That was my third attempt at getting sober and the first time I was using the app. I had used a regular counter app previously and gotten to four months. I truly believe that adding the I Am Sober app and the addiction recovery quotes that people were posting was one of the most powerful tools in my early recovery toolkit. It was a great way to direct some of the energy I was feeling and to harness my inner strength. 

I think it also helped me to be reminded that I was not the only person on the journey of recovery. Shame is the enemy of positive changes — if you feel like you have something to push down and hide, it’s the hardest thing to feel like you even deserve to recover. Being reminded that other human beings have struggles and that a sober life is a great life too can really help us stay focused on recovery. 

Now, at the time of my writing this, I am nearing three years sober. It’s been a lot of hard work but sobriety has been the best gift. I didn’t realize what a dark place I was in until I was in recovery. Nothing else changed except that i stopped drinking, and everything changed. I am better today than I was a month ago; I hope to be still better tomorrow. I am more emotionally stable today than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams three years ago. My sobriety did that. I didn’t know how sick it was making me until I quit and got better. 

All this to say: these quotes and quotes like them helped me get sober. I hope they help you stay sober!

Inspirational Sobriety Quotes for When You’re 30 Days Sober

I’ve divided this post up into different emotions, because honestly by 30 days some people are feeling great and want to read quotes about feeling great. Other people, probably the majority, still feel pretty terrible. So there’s a section of quotes for them, too – at 30 days sober, I was one of you!

30 days sober quotes for why it’s worth it

• Real power is the thing you’ve always had inside you. Real power doesn’t need to be demonstrated or boasted. Real power is the ability to be in your skin, to know who you are, to know you will always be okay. Real power comes from your gut and your heart and your courage and your bravery and your love. Real power can never be taken away from you and never lost once it’s found.” — Holly Whitaker, 
• “Getting sober was the single bravest thing I’ve ever done and will ever do in my life.” — Jamie Lee Curtis
• “I finally summoned up the courage to say the three words that would change my life: ‘I need help.’” — Elton John
• “I had all the help in the world, but I didn’t want it. When I hit that moment, I was like, it’s no longer fun when you’re doing it alone.” — Demi Lovato
• “Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.” — Carl Jung
• “I made a commitment to completely cut out drinking and anything that might hamper me from getting my mind and body together. And the floodgates of goodness have opened upon me.” — Denzel Washington
• “When I got sober, I thought giving up was saying goodbye to all the fun and all the sparkle, and it turned out to be just the opposite. That’s when the sparkle started for me.” — Mary Karr
• It hasn’t always been easy and the road isn’t always smooth. I recognise factors which trigger urges and avoid them and people. I’ve got a great network of supportive friends and family, my AA group, and stopdrinking. I know not every day will be sunshine and roses but things will always be infinitely better if I do not pick up that first drink. — u/legendofbaggervance
• “Getting sober just exploded my life. Now I have a much clearer sense of myself and what I can and can’t do. I am more successful than I have ever been. I feel very positive where I never did before, and I think that’s all a direct result of getting sober.”— Jamie Lee Curtis
• “Your best days are ahead of you. The movie starts when the guy gets sober and puts his life back together; it doesn’t end there.― Bucky Sinister
• “I personally believe this: We have only today; yesterday’s gone and tomorrow is uncertain. That’s why they call it the present. And sobriety really is a gift… for those who are willing to receive it.” ― Ace Frehley
• “My pink cloud lasts and lasts. I worried about my drinking for so long, every time I think about what I’ve accomplished, it makes me happy. The intense pink-ness lasted about 3 months, but I’m still pinking along. When reality means clear eyes, waking up with no regrets from the night before, a bank account that isn’t being drained by a liquid, and a feeling of pride like no other–it’s all pink, baby!” — u/JoyceCooper46
• “It is 10 years since I used drugs or alcohol and my life has improved immeasurably. I have a job, a house, a cat, good friendships, and, generally, a bright outlook… The price of this is constant vigilance because the disease of addiction is not rational.” – Russell Brand

30 Days Sober quotes for how you got here

• “Addiction is not caused by stress on the job. It has more to do with your childhood and lots of other things.” — Kate Moss
• “Addiction begins with the hope that something ‘out there’ can instantly fill up the emptiness inside.” — Jean Kilbourne
• “If you need booze or drugs to enjoy your life to the fullest, then you’re doing it wrong.” — Robin Williams
• “The mentality and behavior of drug addicts and alcoholics are wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless over their addiction and unless they have structured help, they have no hope.”— Russell Brand
• I couldn’t have gotten sober without rehab because I needed the science.”  — Rob Lowe, 
• “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger — something better, pushing right back.” — Albert Camus
•  Getting sober didn’t make me like myself. But it did raise the possibility of ways of thinking and doing that maybe could lead me there. I’ve realized that drinking was the strongest barrier in the way of anything like that. — u/alonefrown
• “We live in a world where we’re trying to make a new path while being bombarded with alcohol from all sides. The fact that we can string together multiple single days, all while facing temptation, guilt, trauma, and desire is a damn miracle.” — u/theobob
• “I used to think everything was awful, my life was a mess and that I’d always be miserable. The only thing I’ve changed this month is not drinking alcohol, and already it feels like I’m looking at the world through technicolour glass. I have dreams for my future and I feel hopeful again.” — Unknown
• “Valor consists in the power of self recovery.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “Alcohol is the only drug in the world where, when you stop taking it, you are seen as having a disease.” ― Holly Whitaker
• “People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within.”  — Ramona L. Anderson
• “Don’t let the past steal your present.” — Terri Guillemets

And 30 Days Sober Quotes for Pushing Through the Hardship 

1. “The beginning is perhaps more difficult than anything else, but keep heart; it will turn out all right.” ― Vincent Van Gogh
2. If You’re Going Through Hell, Keep Going — Winston Churchill
3. That inner dialogue tells us, ‘You’re not capable of change. You are weak. You’re staying stuck.’ And when you break that cycle, the empowerment that comes out of it, that says ‘I’m not weak, I’m actually strong, I’ve proven to myself that I am capable of change,’”. — Drew Barrymore
4. “Just for the record darling, not all positive change feels positive in the beginning.”— S. C. Lourie
5. “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step”. – Martin Luther King Jr.
6. If you’re alive today, you can make it back. You’re worth it.” — Demi Lovato
7. “Recovery didn’t open the gates of heaven and let me in. Recovery opened the gates of hell and let me out!” — unknown
8. “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
9. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” — Winston Churchill
10. “You may make mistakes, but that doesn’t mean you are a failure. Your past does not define you; you are prepared by it.” — Unknown
11. “Addiction is the only prison where the locks are on the inside.” — Rita Stradling
12. “I think that the power is the principle. The principle of moving forward, as though you have the confidence to move forward, eventually gives you confidence when you look back and see what you’ve done.” — Robert Downey Jr.

30 Days Sober Quotes about Professional Treatment

• “Rehab isn’t what finally got me sober. It was nearly losing everything and finally seeing that whatever benefit I thought alcohol gave me was outweighed by what it would cost me… ‘You are removing the capacity to be present, not just in the bad moments. You’re numbing the good feelings. You’re numbing everything. It’s profoundly selfish.” — Elizabeth Vargas
• “Your addiction is not you, but it feels like you because you’ve spent so much intimate time together.” – Toni Sorenson
• “Sobriety is never owned. It’s rented. And the rent is due every day.”
• “Alcoholism is the only disease that treats loneliness with isolation. In treatment, you aren’t alone anymore.”
• “You just can’t beat the person who won’t give up.” — Babe Ruth
• “Whether I or anyone else accepted the concept of alcoholism as a disease didn’t matter; what mattered was that when treated as a disease, those who suffered from it were most likely to recover.” ― Craig Ferguson
• We must do away with any shred of denial, minimization, justification, or rationalization. To recover, we must completely and totally understand and accept the truth that addiction creates suffering.”― Noah Levine
• “One of the hardest things was learning that I was worth recovery.” — Demi Lovato

Final thoughts

If you’re 30 days sober, you’ve done an enormous thing! Congratulations.

Stay focused on the next steps. Stay grateful for what you’ve given yourself so far. And stay vigilant about the addictive thoughts that may start to creep in. (“I can probably have just one now” got me twice before I got wise!)

A sober life is a beautiful life and it will be waiting for you every single day if you let it. Stay focused on the process of recovery, take care of your mental health, and remember a day of sobriety is a day well spent. 

​I wish you the very best in your new beginning: healthy relationships, good decisions, and the beautiful truth of a sober life. 

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